Optimism Flatline, Then a Reboot

What did we do without technology? I don't know . . . I think there used to be humans with expertise and answers. It's all well and good until it's complicated and impossible.

"The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves."
— Pema Chödrön (When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times)

"To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest."
— Pema Chödrön

"The more you just try to get it your way, the less you feel at home."
— Pema Chödrön (The Pocket Pema Chodron)

I’m up EARLY this morning. Herr Zen and Alfred the Cat are still sleeping. I crept down the narrow little stairs, feet muffled by my German hausfrau shoes, with Nyx gliding like a panther by my feet. She’s currently staring out the window at the rapidly approaching dawn.

It’s going to be a gorgeous day. I can feel it. The sky is clear, and that lone little tree sticking out of the woodline is basking in the pink sunlight. We built our first fire in the woodstove yesterday evening, but the days are still mellow and warm. Like in Game of Thrones, Winter is Coming!! But we still have a few more weeks of late autumn, I think.

Enough avoidance with talk of the weather. I’ll say it - I hit an emotional wall yesterday. Hard. Without a crash helmet. I also thought about what I was feeling and why, and made some adjustments to my attitude.

Don’t worry, it all turns out okay. And maybe I should just put a line under it and keep moving, without documenting it, but I have a feeling I will need to remember these lessons again and again for a while. Bear with me. Or skip to below the photo of the flowers for the happy ending stuff.

I had unforeseen problems with technology. Twice. Before lunch. I never even made it out of my pajamas before the bad news started.

I tried to set up my new address online so that this U.S. government agency - which shall not be named - could start to turn its’ behemoth head slowly in my direction and get things started again. The website could not understand. There is no country but the US. There is no editing in the dropdown menu. My new life in Tasmania is impossible.

I called the service number with my stateside cell phone, which is still turned on. Thank the Lord. Because to get anywhere on the website or phone, the US office has to send a text with a four digit number for me to type in to get to the next intelligence test, er, I mean step, in the process.

I finally got through to a nice lady named Pina, who spent an hour helping me take photos of my ID, maneuver through various draconian levels, only to end up at the same place like a maniacal game of Chutes and Ladders. She tactfully admitted defeat the second time through - I’m sure there were PLENTY of easier stateside callers waiting for help - and suggested a couple of other avenues of approach. Which, yeah, lady, I might try tomorrow, because you have used up almost my entire quota of optimism today.

The last bit of optimism disappeared during a WhatsApp call to my youngest sister. OH, not because of technology failure, WhatsApp works like a dream. More an unexpected reaction to technology success.

I should have just used the call function without the video. Seeing my smiling sister sitting on the couch next to her husband, with my favorite dogs barking, the evening lamplight gleaming on the familiar warm wall paneling - it made me so homesick!

The homesickness comes in waves. Fortunately, I can ride them, although I drowned for about half an hour yesterday before bobbing back to the surface. I made a list of the best advice I’ve gotten about my big move to prepare for the next tsunami.

• My friend, who has moved repeatedly with the State Department, says expect to dislike or hate it for the first three months, then it will gradually start to feel better and better until it feels like your new home. (I’m only two weeks in - of COURSE I’m still homesick.)

• My other friend told me of sitting in a bathroom in her new Army home in Hawaii and sobbing her heart out for what seemed like an hour, only to come out of it feeling restored and optimistic.

• One sister told me to set my boundaries with my husband, put myself first once in a while and let him know, rather than bury my feelings. (Herr Zen agrees with this one. He’s not a mind reader.)

• The other sister advised me to set aside ‘Me’ time and come up with some serious self care treats. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

• My brother doesn’t give advice. (Are you kidding me? He never got a word in edgewise growing up.) He teaches me by example. He doesn’t talk about it when he’s feeling down, which shortens the duration. He jokes, tells funny stories, and pulls himself out of the doldrums through sheer strength of will.

All great advice. While I was thinking of an action plan, things got better. Our friend in Sydney kindly pulled over in a parking lot on her way home from work to help us finish setting up our phones. We now both have our Australian mobile numbers. (I am sorry to say that Australia also required a lot of secret text messages to my friend’s Australian number to get things up and running - but it was still 100 times easier than the morning’s debacle.)

So - yesterday I cried for half an hour, felt better, told Herr Zen I want to start looking at houses, like, YESTERDAY, demanded to go to the grocery store for flowers and bath salts, and spent a good, long while talking and joking with the real estate agent and our landlady about the local area - ins, outs, best restaurants, beauty shops, etc. Oh, and I had two glasses of red wine. Self care at its most basic.

Here are the flowers. We don’t have a vase in the house, but I did locate a teapot that could fill in for me. Having flowers on the table makes it feel more like a vacation, less like a temporary flat for transients. This is home, it needs to feel like it. I will continue to give myself little treats. Herr Zen will continue to accommodate or reap the emotional, teary whirlwind. (I’m his worst nightmare on the homesick days. He’s more than happy to buy me some blooms to avoid the meltdown.)

From little treats to big treats. After talking with the real estate lady again, we’ve widened our house horizons. We’re no longer limiting our options to houses within walking distance of a town, grocery store or cafe. We might have to get a second car. We bought the primary car this morning.

But before finalizing the car purchase, Herr Zen went to Harvey Norman (geez, we’re keeping that place afloat!) and got an oil heater for the master bedroom. It’s all well and good having a wood burning fireplace, but the heat pipe goes through the SMALL bedroom and keeps it cozy, while ours just gets chillier as the night goes by. Maybe with the oil heater the cats will move down to the foot of the bed again instead of burrowing like little centipedes between us and stealing my portion of the duvet.

While he shopped for a heater, I walked up the steepest road I’ve ever seen. Parts of Hobart are like San Francisco. Talk about invigorating. Here are a few of the views on the way up and down.

ANYWAY, on to the good stuff.

Tom, the car salesman in Hobart this morning was young, pulled together, and sharp as a tack. Great vocabulary! He says the car I want is ‘nimble’ rather than powerful. I was mesmerized by his ice green eyes, the color of honeydew.

Fortunately, Herr Zen did most of the finagling, because Tom could have offered me a beat up wreck and I would have swooned and thanked him. He’s recently married and they’ve just bought their first house in our chosen valley, which makes me feel good about our decision to focus our search there.

Behold, the Subaru Outback, Sport Version. Just waiting for the added towbar and window tint and Herr Zen should have his new ride in 10 days or so.

Tom also gave us lots of valuable local info - the name of the best furniture store, best Italian restaurant, best internet service and best local pub. After completing the paperwork, we drove immediately to the pub, an 1861 beauty about a kilometer off of Highway A6 in Longley, Tasmania.

I took Tom’s recommendation of the spicy chicken parmi - breaded and fried chicken cutlet covered with cheese, jalapenos and sriracha sauce on a bed of french fries - and Herr Zen got the daily special, a Meatzilla Chicken Parmi, with cheese, bacon, ham, chorizo and barbecue sauce covering his chicken cutlet. Or, as he called it, a Heart Attack on a Plate. (He is currently taking a nap with the cats.)

I walked to the back of the parking area to take a picture of the North West Bay River, careful not to disturb the campers in the cute little tents on the high ground. Nice! Looks like Ramsau, Germany with all the rocks in the river bed. I imagine the water is higher in the springtime. I’ll have to come back and do a Four Seasons vignette of photos to paint.

And try some of the other different Parmis. (Like I need an excuse. Herr Zen and I have already made a pact to try to LIMIT our pub runs. If not, we’ll need to literally run to the pub and back to get rid of a small percentage of the calories from the behemoth Parmi.) Chicken Parmi, as it’s called colloquially, appears to be Australia’s unofficial national dish. Delicious. Especially with a Willie Smith’s hard cider.

It all works out. I need to try to step back and take a breath when the homesickness hits and remember that. IT ALL WORKS OUT!

"The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him?

No, thank you,' he will think. 'Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are things which cannot inspire envy."
— Viktor E. Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning)